Page 30 of Six Wild Crowns

He takes a pestle and mortar from one part of his toolbox and opens another compartment to reveal rows of glass bottles. He selects several – some herbs, some that look like balms and one that seems to be liquid silver, and measures them out into the mortar.

Seymour stumbles against the wall, dizzy. He rushes over to her.

“My apologies, my lady. I assumed, from your silence, that the pain wasn’t too bad.”

She gapes at him. “How could the pain not be bad?”

“I…” he doesn’t finish his sentence, only fumbles in his box for a vial of amber powder, which he heats in a spoon over the fire and then instructs her to drink. The relief is instantaneous – every part of her body goes numb. She sinks, blissful, to the floor.

When Clarice returns with water, the physician has ground theingredients into a paste that smells of charcoal and hisses like embers in rain. He tears two lengths of muslin from his stock, plunges them into the water and wrings them out before applying the paste across one side.

“This may sting, despite the opiate,” he warns, before draping the muslin over her poor hands. It does sting a little, but nothing compared to what it was like before. He wraps the muslin with skilled fingers, knotting the ends tightly so that she looks as though she’s wearing mittens.

“We’ll need to change these daily,” he says, placing his vials back in his box. “I will return after lunch tomorrow.”

“Thank you,” Seymour says through the fog in her mind. He bows softly and is about to leave when she remembers something. “Sir, may I ask – that you don’t mention this to anyone?”

She fumbles in her pocket for coins, the bandages and the medicine making her clumsy. The physician acknowledges the bribe silently before leaving. Clarice helps Seymour to her bed.

“Who would have done this?” they murmur, eyes flicking to the door, the window, anywhere but Seymour.

“I’ll be all right. It’s not as if I don’t have scars already,” she says. She doesn’t want Clarice to investigate, or they might uncover the task Seymour was given by Aragon. Clarice throws her an impenetrable look, and not for the first time Seymour wonders whether they really believe the lies she told them about the scars on her thighs – that they came from Edward.

“I’ll kill them,” Clarice says.

The Queen’s Kiss. DO YOUR JOB.

There can be no doubting that this is Queen Aragon’s work. And that means that she has other spies in the castle. Other spies willing to injure. Perhaps, even, willing to kill.

For the first time in her life, a plan begins to form in Seymour’s slow, stupid head.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Boleyn

Henry rides ahead of his guards, galloping across Brynd’s drawbridge a full hour before his retinue.

“My queen!” he bellows, his voice reaching through the castle and into Boleyn’s bedchamber. She doesn’t have her shoes on yet, but she escapes her maids and slips down the stairs and across the vestibule, out onto the cobbles. Henry sees her bare feet and strides towards her, laughing at her impropriety. He sweeps her up into his arms.

“You feral woman. You could have fallen and hurt the baby.”

She slaps him on the chest playfully. “Never mind hurting myself.”

He carries her into the palace, past dozens of courtiers. She spots Lady Seymour among them, head low, eyes up, watching them.Go and tell your queen of this, she thinks, as Henry carries her directly to her bedchamber, dismisses the maids waiting there and promptly undoes all their work.

Afterwards, they lie in bed, limbs interlocked, the draught wafting her hair across Henry’s shoulder. One of his hands is splayed protectively across her belly. She twists to move it to her waist. She doesn’t want to exclude him, but the baby isn’t his. Not yet. For now it is her precious burden alone.

“We will raise him to be the greatest king that Elben has ever known,” Henry says, almost to himself.

“It will be difficult to top his father, but we will try.”

He pushes her hair away from her cheek.

“Do you mean that, Boleyn?”

He is ten years older than her, but he looks like a boy who’s tumbled from a tree.

“How can you ask me that when you have just conquered an entire country?”

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